Why We’ll Remember the Warriors

The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers for their first championship in forty years.

Photograph by Paul Sancya/AP

Now that the parade confetti has been swept away in Oakland, how, exactly, will we remember this year’s N.B.A. Finals? The six-game series ended on Tuesday, when the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers for their first championship in forty years. That long-awaited title will not be soon forgotten in the Bay Area, but the series was notable for more than the chunky, diamond-studded rings it awarded. It was marked, on the one hand, by the dominance of LeBron James; on the other, it was a triumph of a modern basketball philosophy that may revolutionize the sport.

For James, the Cavaliers’ extraordinary forward, visits to the Finals have become an annual rite. This year was his fifth consecutive appearance, but after injuries to Kevin Love (a dislocated shoulder in the first round of the playoffs, against Boston) and Kyrie Irving (a fractured kneecap in overtime of Game 1 of the Finals), James was left propping up a scrap heap of New York Knicks castaways, creaky veterans, and a scruffy Australian who earned infamy for diving into opponents’ legs. James’ efforts to single-handedly win a championship, however unlikely, were even exhausting to watch. All told, he played in two hundred and seventy-four of the Finals’ two hundred and ninety-eight minutes, and possessed the ball for nearly a quarter of that time; when he was off the floor, the Cavs bucketed a total of six field goals. He out-scored, out-rebounded, and out-assisted every other player on the court, for both teams, something that has never happened before in N.B.A. history. His work was not always efficient or pretty—he shot 39.8 per cent from the floor in the series; his skull was bloodied after a foul sent him careening into the baseline cameras in Game 4—but his greatness was undeniable. We may never see another player put up such outlandish numbers in the Finals, mostly because few teams could travel so far on the shoulders of one man in the first place.

The award for the Finals’ Most Valuable Player was not given to James, however, but to the Warrior primarily charged with defending him, Andre Iguodala. This isn’t such a surprise: the last time the honor went to a player on the losing team was in 1969, when the Los Angeles Lakers’ Jerry West won the honor despite falling to the Celtics. Still, after James’s transcendent performance, it feels depressingly unfair to chalk this series up as simply another Finals loss—his record now stands at 2-4. For much of his career, James’s postseason failures have been used as a cheap referendum on his accomplishments, saddling him, alone, with the responsibility for his teams’ shortfalls. They are viewed as evidence of fatal glitches in the coding of a basketball machine; his heart and mind are more heavily scrutinized than his opponents’ accomplishments are praised. An anomalous Finals M.V.P. award might have buoyed James’ legacy. Instead, the lazy, reductive arguments endure.

As for this year’s champions, it’s too soon to know whether the Warriors will evolve into the next N.B.A. dynasty. For the moment, they’re a young team, with a first-year head coach in Steve Kerr, that spent much of the postseason pummelling injury-battered teams and avoiding more menacing foes like the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Clippers. Stephen Curry, the Warriors’ point guard and the M.V.P. of the regular season, did not deliver a performance for the ages, though he did set a record for three-pointers in the postseason, drilling ninety-eight in twenty-one games. Those threes are indicative of the larger reason for the Warriors’ title, and why it will become part of N.B.A. Finals lore. Golden State is best known as an offensive juggernaut, one identified with hyperactive speed, perimeter shooting, and small, interchangeable lineups that can spread the floor. This offensive philosophy was pioneered by Mike D’Antoni, who coached the Phoenix Suns from 2003 to 2008. His team’s “seven-seconds-or-less” attack racked up impressive season records but failed to advance them to the Finals—a sign, for skeptics, that a system built on a dizzying web of offense would inevitably lose to bullying playoff basketball.

Kerr and the Warriors assistant coach Alvin Gentry brought D’Antoni’s system with them to the Bay Area nonetheless, and that is where it has proven capable of a crowning coup d’état. In the Finals, just as occurred early in Golden State’s second-round matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Warriors faced a 2-1 deficit against a team determined to turn the series into a slog. They beat the Cavaliers by doubling down on their small-ball strategy; they benched Andrew Bogut, the seven-foot center, and shifted Draymond Green, a six-foot-seven forward, into the pivot position. The gamble conceded the rebounding edge to the Cavs, but re-asserted the team’s treasured offensive spacing. Golden State won the next three games, out-scoring a weary-looking Cleveland by a total of forty-two points.

After the championship champagne was uncorked, Gentry acknowledged the stigma that had just been exorcised. “Tell Mike D’Antoni he’s vindicated,” he said. “We just kicked everyone’s ass playing the way everybody complained about!” Gentry may be brushing over the fact that other teams have adopted many of the Suns’ principles (for example, the champion Spurs and Miami Heat both integrated elements like three-point-shooting big men; even the Cavs utilized James in multiple positions this series). Still, Golden State’s title is the seminal moment for an orthodoxy that had not yet won in its purest form. While few franchises have a playmaker as formidable as Curry, the Warriors’ win is reshaping conventional basketball wisdom. And, years from now, that stylistic triumph, as much as the Warriors’ championship itself, will most likely be the defining legacy of the 2015 Finals.

Ben Detrick is a writer who lives in New York City. He contributes to the New York Times, Grantland, and Know Wave Radio.

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